


Dead Roses

by cinderadler



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Denial of Feelings, First Kiss, Fluff, Light Bondage, M/M, Showers, drugged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 02:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/657214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderadler/pseuds/cinderadler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock turned on the shower, letting it drench them until he couldn't see clearly for damp, tangled curls.</p><p>There was no kiss so sweet as one not swallowed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads up and enjoy!  
> -Cardiac Arrythmia is the condition where the heart's normal rhythm is disrupted, where the heart misses a beat.  
> -Atropa Belladonna, commonly Belladonna or Deadly Nightshade, can kill with the combination of its ability to kill with its use to beautify by dilating the pupils gives it a romantic attraction which is hard to beat. Add to that the hallucinations it may also cause and its fascination is complete.  
> -Alkyl Nitrite, similarly, a recreational drug that has the ability to cause arrhythmias and asphyxia among other things. The compounds have a distinctive fruity odour.

** Monday **

It wasn’t particularly sunny outside on Monday morning as toil pent up beneath John’s black and white striped jumper. The weather at least acted as pathetic fallacy when John punched that photocopier in the surgery. John threw one clean punch to the photocopier and he walked away. The doctor bolted from the situation the same way Sherlock does from such social niceties as responsibility, cleaning, affection, food and friends.

It was incredulously mundane out, in fact, as John wandered out of the surgery early last Monday. Without sparing Sarah’s confused and vaguely panicked face a second glace, he debated whether he would return to ‘work’. Probably not.

John had something much more pressing that needed his attention than photocopying himself into a shallow grave at the surgery. There was this body that just _needed_ to be examined in 221B, John was dubious as to whether bio-cultures were spawning on the flesh because it was just poised like a work of art, all day long for three days now. On the other hand, the corpse sitting next to Sherlock on the sofa probably required looking at too; John really needed to work out which one of the curiously inanimate pair was making the flat smell like old burning roses. The acute if abrasive charred-rose aroma was wearing at John’s nerves.

By the time he’d gotten back to the flat on Monday, chaos was in full swing, his opening of the front door appeared to cue a large, powder blue explosion. Said explosion was at the, presumably strong and slim but tersely shaped, hands of Sherlock Holmes.

As John strategized his route through the baby-blue smog, there was no doubt in his mind as to why he disliked Mondays. He had deduced, a fully Holmesian deduction, that it was because Mondays weren’t like Tuesdays. Sherlock was enigmatic at the very least on Mondays, and on such Mondays, Sherlock quickly became the catalyst for disaster in John’s small world. John’s world had a population of two, sometimes three but mainly two, and he was perfectly fine with that. In John’s world, however, Mondays were simply an excuse to clean up the pieces of his brain from the inevitable soup Sherlock had made of him. Tuesdays were calm and full of tea.

Sherlock watched his clouds of smoke dissipate around the familiar figure before him. He wasn’t too interested in all honesty but he was never disinterested in John, and John knew it. Black curls, which ached to be combed over with idle hands, set Sherlock’s silhouette apart from most. Holmes was one of a kind and that was a wonderful thing.

John stepped his way over body parts and stacks of documents and compositions that had been on the floor for weeks as he made his way to this unique and beautiful creature. Sherlock’s pallid skin bathed in the sombre glow of the fading blue smoke, it lit his eyes up ever-so-slightly, as his mouth set from its pre-set tight line to his well-practiced curt smile.  

“John, allow me to explain-“ Sherlock began flatly but no less inviting than he felt customary for justifying his ‘science’ to John.

“Sherlock.” John stated, stopping Sherlock’s ill-emoted explanation before he became tactless and insulting. “Don’t bother,” He didn’t sound defeated, rather submissive, there was care there though. John did wish he’d saved that punch for Sherlock instead of the photocopier.

“But-“Ever the petulant adult, Sherlock grew insistent to say what wanted to, not wanting to be silenced or outdone by his flatmate’s sudden nonchalance. In one breath, Sherlock had nothing to say, he swallowed any sardonic comment or quip like an obtuse pill.

John moved closer to Sherlock, concentrating his gaze on Sherlock’s eyes, searching deep inside his head for the switch to turn him off. John’s eyes flickered darker, Sherlock hadn’t seen them so dependent since **that** night at the pool, and he was intrinsically intrigued.

 Both men grew tense almost simultaneously, their breathing caught amidst each other’s. John endeavoured to restrain himself from blinking as Sherlock fought to catch the subtle moan in his throat. Nothing broke between them for what felt like hours, neither moving, both fearing to breathe to loud or say anything at all, lest ruin the unknown situation they had created here. They inched closer together after long minutes suspended quietly in each other’s magnetic field.

The warmth of their mingling breath became soft when John inhaled in Sherlock’s scent, he almost choked when Sherlock’s fragile lashes sunk to the floor, and John’s eyes suddenly thirsted to close like Sherlock’s. John blinked slowly, breathing in for both of them, easing his mouth closer to Sherlock’s skin.

Too close to be subtle, John thought, not close enough to be gentle. John bit back the indistinct tremble in his lips when Sherlock leant his head down. So close to meaning it.

“Shh-“John faltered his near silent, half-swallowed vocative.

“John.” Sherlock’s voice was deep and heavy, little less than a soft growl.

“I’ll make tea.” John sputtered, spinning on his heels, blinking and breathing hurriedly as his fingers ghosted past Sherlock’s. His flatmate’s eyes shot open with a rigid, self-conscious stare, his marble features depicted that of a teenager caught trying to instigate their first kiss. The mortified expression Sherlock soon shook off was irrefutable proof, in his world, that John Watson had come close to bettering the insufferable Sherlock Holmes.

Comforting narcissism drowned that peculiar glint of turmoil in Sherlock’s crystalline eyes. He stared without seeing John, and the way the midday sun tangled in the shorter hairs on the back of his neck. Gold was suddenly Sherlock’s favourite colour.

Monday soon passed in a haze of small chemical explosions, copious tea, minimal eye contact and an unknown melody on the violin. Four cups of tea, one semblance of a meal and this new song of Sherlock’s that John didn’t know had lulled John to sleep with bruised knuckles, aching eyes and a strangely heavy heart. John let the weight of it anchor him to his bed until sleep pulled him under, without interrupting Sherlock’s song.

\---

Sherlock wasn’t hungry but he ate whatever John had made him, pasta perhaps? It could have been anything, Sherlock later deduced; he didn’t care much for food. Or emotions, as it happened, particularly so as his stomach tied itself into the most peculiar but pulchritudinous knot. He was unable to theorise anything other than stone-cold mechanical reactions or clinical anatomical processes to justify to himself why he’d done what he had tried to, at approximately 11:43 am, Monday, October 3rd. This situation was developing into something Sherlock didn’t understand and he didn’t like unchartered territory until he had claimed it as his own.

Sherlock set his violin down 2 full hours after John had gone to bed. The lights were still off in 221B as the younger Holmes prowled about in the living room, one hand was lodged in his dark ocean of curls, one hand played with his lower lip. Sherlock Holmes began to think of the feel of his hair laced in his hand, the sensation of his fingers combing at his scalp, and the way the curls of his feral hair licked around his fingers like tongues with secrets to sell. Holmes was overcome by peace, all of a sudden, and just wanted to sleep it off.

“Secrets?” Sherlock murmured, whispering to himself, calculating a potential formula to develop a cure for his newly-manifested guilt complex. He moved almost without thought, dropping both arms to his sides as he strode toward John’s bedroom and gently opened the door without a sound.

Sherlock was plunged into a calming numbness as the sound of John’s sleep-laden breathing engulfed the room. Such an artless noise caused Sherlock to flatten his feet from standing on his toes; he paced over to the right side of John’s bed, facing his flatmate’s back. He sensed something he could only surmise as a penny resting on the back of his tongue as Sherlock cast his analytical gaze from John’s mussed hair to the rise and fall of his chest under loose sheets. Sherlock shut his eyes momentarily, to collect his thoughts, and swallowed the notion of the surmised penny on the back of his tongue down. The indistinct feeling ran down his throat and landed at the base of his stomach. His eyes struck open, cohesive to the lurch in his gut, notifying him that he was actually much closer to his flatmate than he thought.

“John,” Sherlock heard himself utter softly, unaware that his mouth had even opened. “can you keep a secret?” He became quickly conscious to the notion that he was enquiring as to the loyalty of his only ‘friend’ in the world, and was consumed by a flush of stupidity. Holmes continued, in undemanding sincerity, with a tone that could be misconstrued as fearful. “I want to--I like the way –I need-“He stuttered as quietly as he could. “Gold. Gold is my favourite colour.” Sherlock swallowed back the remnants of adolescent nervousness as he whispered to a sleeping John. “Gold has the chemical symbol Au. It’s chemically inert, it doesn’t rust or age. Gold is edible and melts at 1064.43 degrees centigrade-I, John, the sunlight in your hair looks like spun gold and it’s gorgeous.” Sherlock Holmes bit his tongue. He hadn’t felt this sick in very long time when he tenuously opened eyes he hadn’t realised were closed. “Sorry, John.” The raven-haired, doll of a man all but choked. He pressed his mouth into a hard line, for safety’s sake, and swept out of John’s room in a flurry of blue silk.

** Tuesday **

Sherlock woke early on Tuesday, repressing the idea that the previous day had occurred. He chose instead to firmly embrace the explanation that he was at the mercy of fatigue or had perhaps had carelessly, drugged himself inadvertently. He was as much the man as he always was; no emotions or weaknesses, all chemicals, cheekbones and counterfeit charm.

The blur of black and blue-grey fled eagerly past John, touching everywhere but him. Surgical tools glittered on the kitchen counter, strewn amidst teacups and spilled sugar. John took little notice of this as he rose from his chair and stumbled, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen. He wedged himself between Sherlock’s silk-draped back and the counter uncomfortably, there he leered over the kettle like a magpie as it glinted in the dull 10:12 am glow. It was too early for this.

John had tried to sleep in until gone midday, planning to push his luck until 1:30 before ruining Sherlock’s day just to coax the particularly attractive expression of a sly, cynical twist of the mouth when he’d look up under his ungodly curls. However, John’s head swum as he lay in bed while he resurrected the concept of sleep for the fifth time that night. He’d felt something warm brush by his ear at some point during his slumber, he was semi-conscious to it but paid it no mind, and awoke some hours later with a cotton mouth mumbling ‘gold’ like it was the only word in his  less-than-vast vocabulary.

Elongated sleep was not to be, it appeared, so John got out of bed and waded through dirge of the 8 o’clock stupor to his flatmate and his armchair.

Steam from the kettle reluctantly boiled John from his near sleep. His left hand clipped a conical flask as he reached for the askance jar of sugar and John could only react enough to watch the marbled orange liquid spill across the unit. He upturned the flask as slow as he liked because it was probably orange juice made to look scientific for John’s sake.

“John, could I request that you not be so unresponsive in the presence of boiling water, poisonous chemicals and me? Good.” The frankly heart-warming consideration for his fellow flatmate made John wonder if yesterday had happened at all either.

“Certainly, Sherlock.” John’s fatigued concern for such phatic matters of social conformity coaxed that small sly smile to Sherlock’s shadowed face. “Tea?” John interposed in the hair’s breadth between their backs.

“Yes.” Sherlock was as rude as was expected when he was concentrated on something; in this case it was whatever he had isolated under his microscope, playing God with one chemical or another. Sherlock sniffed in derision when John handed Sherlock his tea with a cordial expression, similar to that of Mycroft’s look of annoyance, and swept his hand across the marginal stain on the countertop. John took his tea to his chair with the newspaper and let himself wake up properly.

Sherlock was quiet for most of Tuesday. He spent his time lying on the sofa with his hands steepled to his chin, praying for clarity to the only God he knew; himself. He stirred from the cacophony of his thoughts to the perpetually grey monotony of real life with the weight of John’s body at his feet. John clutched his cup as he sat, wide-eyed and over-attentive, something was wrong.

“Sherlock Holmes, you’re my own personal cardiac arrhythmia.” The doctor mumbled like he’d been punched, his slow smile was slack and unguarded. John swallowed again, the same tea in his cup from two hours ago. “Sherlock, I feel sick.” Something horrid and sharp wrenched inside Sherlock at John’s slurred, crestfallen speech.

“John, no-“The perturbed detective searched frantically as he spoke, dismantling the intricacies of this Tuesday morning to solve John. “Slow breaths, John.” Sherlock sat up and pulled John’s lax body towards him further, tracing the planes of John’s open face with pressing fingertips and hungry eyes. John almost smiled as he raised his cup to his mouth again, Sherlock’s cool fingers tensed as they prodded and pulled at the doctor’s skin, searching for an answer. John’s pupils were dilated to the size of small planets in his receding irises when Sherlock pulled John’s eyelids apart-there was Sherlock’s solution.

How could he have been so irresponsible?

“Spit out your tea and put your tongue in my mouth.” Sherlock declared too quickly, adopting the same grace with which John had punched that photocopier.

“What?” John blurted, correctly spitting his mouthful of tea everywhere.

“I need to see how much you’ve drunk.” Sherlock’s tones was determinedly preoccupied as his hands flirted with every surface he could touch, the shake in his skin was too evident. “John!” Sherlock raised his voice, a sobering quivering buried too deep for a drugged John to notice, attempting to refocus John’s horribly vulnerable gaze. “I have a higher tolerance to drugs than you do; I can tell you what you’ve drunk and how to stop it, Doctor.” Overwrought fingers were firm on John’s body, white knuckles gripped between the creases of any fabric Sherlock could handle as he carried John to the bathroom, firmer still when they discarded to half-full cup to the coffee table.

John’s lazy smile seemed to sink into his teeth as he was cradled bridal-style, his eyes were unfocussed as Sherlock set him standing against the shower wall.

“Lean your head back, open your mouth.” Sherlock instructed concisely, panic flashed through his cracked-ice eyes. He couldn’t help but feel captivated and simultaneously responsible for the unpleasant beauty John’s eyes exuded, so exposed and truthful, it was so significantly human.

John did as Sherlock told him to, his eyes drowned themselves as he watched Sherlock worry.

Sherlock stapled John’s strong wrists to the wall with his hands, pinning the doctor still but in a way that you would handle woven gold, causing no harm or distress to such a treasure. The detective leant his head down to prevent hurting John’s neck, he didn’t want to poison him and strain his neck too. He doubted John would notice in this state, the poisoned doctor hadn’t stopped staring at Sherlock’s eyes, he watched the professional natural disaster at work. John’s eyes watched Sherlock’s as Sherlock’s eyes watched John’s mouth.

“John.” Sherlock’s tone was subtle and an inch terrified, he beckoned John to snap his eye contact and fix this mess. John’s slack mouth flinched accordingly to the wavering and only note of Sherlock’s deep inhale. Trepidation caught in Sherlock’s constricting windpipe when he inclined his head down, flicking his eyes up to pair with John’s, pressing his surprisingly warm mouth to the doctor’s colder lips. Holmes was quick with his tongue, lacing over the inside of John’s cheek, out of something close to fear of not being able to fix John and his professional reflexes to not indulge himself in anything that wasn’t a constant of certainty. He closed his mouth over John’s, removing his tongue, placing the smallest and most easily unnoticeable kiss to the confirmedly drugged lips of his flatmate.

“Atropa belladonna, alkyl nitrite, orange juice.” Sherlock noted acerbically  as his hands dropped John’s wrists and slipped into John’s hands, pulling him into the shower. The world’s only consulting detective tore of anything that would soak up water, he needed the drug washed off John’s skin. Sherlock chased his hands to John’s pockets to check for a phone where there was none, manoeuvring his lithe, hurried fingers to slip the waist band of John’s pants beneath the waistband of his pyjamas, maintaining John’s dignity. John’s eyes closed limply under the effort of trying to comply and concentrate at once, fluttering back open to keep up appearances of normalcy, he was still as exposed but less dilated.

Sherlock turned on the shower, letting it drench them until he couldn’t see clearly for damp, tangled curls.

He skimmed his fingers under John’s chin and thumbs on the back of John’s neck to angle the doctor’s head up to the water, John closed his eyes to it and Sherlock just watched in some veneer of peace.  He dropped his right arm, it caught John’s bare waist as it was lashed with warming water, but in times of medical emergency Sherlock did not much care. The army doctor’s pupils decreased in dilation slowly but Sherlock needed the narcotics out of John’s system faster than this. Sherlock was a logical man and he pursued a desperate, fraught logic in search of a conclusion.

Under the numbing heat of the water, Sherlock pressed his body forwards, guiding his open mouth and John’s together with fervour and anxiety. They stayed there for a minute, breathing under the water, tasting every strain of fear they could in each other. When Sherlock was sure John’s breathing had escalated and his had settled, he simply twisted his mouth and pulled back, letting warm water and dread wash over him. Sherlock could still taste the drugged orange juice and tea in his own mouth now, that meant it was out of John’s system enough, but the effects did little to quell the tremors of sick butterflies in his stomach, it worsened when he caught John’s eyes directly.

John blinked away the water for a second and looked Sherlock straight on, doused in water so his clothes stuck to his innocent yet byzantine body, and swallowed. The water felt boiling as it poured over them both, burning them up as skin met skin softly. Sherlock Holmes made himself contemplate as he observed John Watson’s deep, leaden eyes. He inched closer and closed his eyes lightly when he caught John’s lips in his mouth gently.

“Doctor,” Slipped free of Sherlock’s teeth as they sunk into John’s lower lip. It was moaned in an exhale and was beautiful enough to bend John’s lips at the corners as he lowered his eyes to charcoal roots and closed them. John entwined his hands in Sherlock’s artfully unkempt locks and guided their mouths to an open, slick fit as Sherlock slid one arm around John’s neck, dragging the other to brace their weight against the wall.

In Sherlock’s mindless attempt to support their weight against the wall he led John’s wet torso up the tiles, catching his foot on the hem of the doctor’s pyjamas, pulling them down past his sculpted hips and undoing his earlier work.

The doctor reacted as the detective acted, pushing into the hot, sticky kiss that was filling with water, John bridged his mouth wider to tug Sherlock’s head closer to deepen the anxious kiss. The pale detective breathed heavily as he tangled his strong fingers into John’s soaking, sandy roots, he looped the arm bracing their weight around John’s shoulders and slid it up the back of his head, smoothing him flush between his body and the wall.

Sherlock’s drenched dressing gown clung to John’s bare chest like glue, compressing chest to chest harmonise the symphony of his thoughts.  The fluid slide of his tongue against John’s was benediction enough for Sherlock’s hollow heart to stay inside his chest and not break through to John’s  bare, slick chest. John pushed his tongue back, tangling as consorts for dominance, in the slowed kiss. Their rhythmic breathing undercut the shower, adding heat and weight to a mess of a first kiss that sank both men into the other.

The dark haired detective caught the torn moan in his mouth when a permissive, easy groan escaped John’s mouth. Sherlock had to fight back the profound, breathy growl growing in the throat at the sticky sound his and John’s mouths made when they drew apart under the flow of the water. John dug his needing fingers into Sherlock’s scalp when he elicited a raw, choked moan from his usually composed flatmate’s throat. To which Sherlock ripped himself away from John panting under the relentless, now cold, water. John caught the detective’s guilty gaze with his own until they lost it to obscuring curls and blurring water.

John wanted to run the hands draping Sherlock’s neck through Sherlock’s whorls and tangles, to sweep him off his feet as he had done to John, and kiss him softly till the blank guilt hanging over the naïve detective like a halo went away.  Sherlock soaked in the swollen, bitten, over-kissed lips of the doctor and the taste of atropa belladonna, alkyl nitrite, orange juice and tea. Sherlock deduced with a flicker of any emotion dominant enough to cloud his expression, that the orange juice was too strong.

The detective in a content state of denial peeled his wet body from John’s, the dressing gown was prised from John’s confused figure like removing a plaster, and fled the bathroom. The slam of the door shook John from biting his bottom lip, trying to taste all he could of the mystifying detective. The sheer terror in Holmes’ eyes didn’t reach John’s gaze until he’d gone.

“Took you long enough.” John Watson tried to bite the whisper back  but lost it to the orchestra of water.

** Wednesday **

The lonely crash of the so-called heart between bare ribs was an occurrence the detective was coming to despise.

“John,” Sherlock’s voice was quiet like a sunset, once full of life but fading and wanting to start again. “I’ve apologised profusely. I shouldn’t have left such a concoction unattended.” Sherlock pleaded to his angry flatmate, his hands skirted his riotous hair for the third time in five minutes. He steeled his expression as he escaped into his mind to hide. Sherlock’s head was a hurricane in a teacup with but one port in the storm, two cups and a kettle. The sway of his thoughts caught his elusive yet wrenching heart and smuggled it away for safe keeping, tucking it into a closet in the back of Sherlock’s mind when John’s livid eyes pierced his unconcentrated mask.

“I’m not a child, Sherlock!” John spat, tired of the strain of listening to the child-minded genius who’d torn his heart from his chest, stamp on it in front of him.

“I never said you were, I merely insinuated at my irrespon-“

“Sherlock!” John snapped at his flatmate’s last admission. “You’re wonderful, you know that? How **_brilliant_** of you to see through me-how _truly fucking perfect_ you are, Sherlock Holmes!” John fumed with eyes that once depicted exacting beauty now glaring a wrathful black. “I thought you might’ve actually cared, for once. I thought you cared enough about your stupid bastard of a flatmate not to poison him with chemicals or nearly kill him trying to fix it.” The doctor’s festering fury dampened his tone into something unforgiving and malevolent. “I really am stupid to you, aren’t I?” John’s words were barley words at all, they were nails in Sherlock’s coffin that condemned him to a guilt-ridden existence of self-loathing, demons and broken teacups. “You know, Sherlock, I should’ve recognised that familiar taste, the poison. I live with a viper, after all.” He spoke without conviction but with acid and seethed torment. John immediately didn’t mean his words, not one. They were borne of anger and unrequited emotion, he just needed to dent Sherlock’s fierce ego, and get to the detective the way he had gotten to him.

For a split second, John saw straight through the grand, handsome man before him; through the façade and the deductions, the intellect and the detective and saw a boy named Sherlock Holmes, lost in a storm.

Just as Sherlock had done to John, the doctor may as well have stabbed the detective square through the heart; they were even in love and regret it seemed.

Sherlock’s lungs stung from breathing suddenly, his empty eyes had long been burning though.

Sherlock Holmes didn’t understand.

“Then, I  am sorry,  John.” Sherlock’s dark curls concealed his undoing. He struggled to stand beneath the pressure to break apart. The pain in his pale chest seared under his purple shirt like salt on an open scald when he caught sight of John’s mouth, bruised and full, and the insipid anguish in the doctor’s blunt stare. “For everything.”

“Just stop talking, Sherlock! Don’t-don’t talk anymore.” The resigned tear of John’s heart from his voice cut the silent Sherlock clean in two. “I don’t want your empty, fucking-heartless apologies. I don’t want anything from you!” John’s fists balled then fell loose like the cut strings of a harp. “I’m going to bed.” He stormed out of the kitchen, leaving Sherlock staring incapably at where he had stood. Two broken teacups made a grave for themselves on the table behind John’s absent body.

The great and unbreakable Sherlock Holmes fell back against the kitchen door and wept tenderly into his hands. He broke himself apart, consumed with a cold burn crawling over his skin, and dismantled his logic of kissing John piece by piece to the inaudible tears of  a doctor. **His doctor.**

Sherlock tried to hide beneath his ink coloured curls when he slung his head to rest agonisingly on his neck, because even he knew that it was hard to hide in a closetful of skeletons.

Sherlock Holmes knew when he was beaten, he had resigned himself to that knowledge the day he was offered, and accepted, a flat share with a doctor returning from service in Afghanistan with a psychosomatic limp and hopeful eyes. He was slumped, ruined, against the kitchen door, sobbing unconsciously in time to John’s maudlin breathing and he knew that he was not beaten. This was not defeat. This was human.

\---

The odour of dead roses became palatable as Sherlock was plunged into reality; he had stopped crying as he noted he could no longer hear John breathing automatically. Sherlock’s eyes swum in his head as stumbled the route to John’s bedroom. His knees gave way under him without him noticing.

Sherlock was consciously aware of his breathing and time pricked at his flesh. He hadn’t felt this familiar sluggish sting in months but knew the sensation of being drugged all too well.

Lead hands clamoured at John’s ajar bedroom door as the distinct clicking of leather shoes became a metronome in Sherlock’s clouding mind, his eyelids tugged slowly to close. Sherlock clawed his way to the foot of John’s bed before his eyes slid shut, his right hand wrapped around the doctor’s left ankle as a snake would its prey; a last feeble attempt at anchoring himself to safety before the storm.

\---

“Wake up, sleepy-head, you’re missing all the fun!”

Sherlock couldn’t hear anything for screeching white noise of James Moriarty’s voice and the  sluggish, pitched breathing of the doctor behind him.

“You see, Sherlock; I thought I’d get my hands dirty for a change.”  Jim’s tone was inviting and his voice curled like that of an entertaining host. “And you’d know all about dirty hands, wouldn’t you?” The only consulting detective in the world didn’t need to look even close to the world’s only consulting criminal to know that he was grinning. Moriarty’s eyes raked over Sherlock for a reaction but found more of a flinch to John’s body, to which he was pleasantly surprised and mildly unsurprised, he **was** only going to play games with the one but games with two was just as fun.

“Surprise, boys!” Jim breathed against Sherlock’s right ear and John’s left, the words licked their skin. “Surprise!” He sang, his Irish brogue pitching as he jumped up from beside the his own personal pair of bondage dolls. “Bet you weren’t expecting me, now, were you?”

“I was, actually.” Sherlock mumbled scornfully, his head tilted back and John’s behind him. “Dead roses and cocaine, how conspicuous.” He chided, attempting to formulate what Jim had embroiled John and himself in.

“Oh, of course, Sherlock-cutie. You’re never wrong, are you? Is he, John?” Jim beckoned to his left to attract John’s attention. Sherlock’s head turned instinctively as John’s did, they both faced Moriarty with a disguised sense of wonder and despair.

“Oh, how little you know.” John dropped the whisper from his darkened, swelling lips, speaking more to the quiet man behind him than to Jim. The detective’s passive-aggressive expression curdled when his eyes narrowed as they blackened and his sly, slight smile soured.

“Oww, one more look like that, Sherlock,  and I might just have to give you my number, you _tease_!” Jim flirted, because he could. “But, boys, I’m staying alive without you and I don’t think I like it.” Moriarty had the vocal lilt of a fairy-tale narrator. “I think I need to get a little more dependent, like you two sweethearts.” Jim bit his lower lip with malevolent eyes and a sardonic smile. “I think I’m going to- Sherlock? John?” Doe eyes flooded with wicked glee. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, boys.” Moriarty ordered, insistent on not touching them to turn their heads. Only their heads moved around because only their heads could. “I’m going to destroy you.” It hadn’t come to either John’s or Sherlock’s attention completely that the hands were tied together at the wrists, or that their fingers we’re tangled insecurely together. Sherlock pressed his palms flat to John’s, fitting his fingers between John’s loose grip.

“I think I’m going to divide…” John pushed his palms purposefully to Sherlock’s, knotting their fingers like his stomach. “and conquer, _eh_ , Sherlock?” Jim swayed his head close to the detective and swept it smoothly to face the doctor directly, his dark chocolate eyes not leaving Sherlock’s searching stare. “I know Johnny wants to, it’s in his eyes.” He waited. “He has nice eyes, doesn’t he, Sherlock?” Jim mused, the day-dream undertones on his speech pierced Sherlock’s concentration. Sherlock swallowed his shame when Moriarty winked. “He doesn’t need to tell me what I already know.” Jim looked deep into John’s curious but guarded eyes, watching the doctor unravel with the commitment of a lover and the heart of a fighter. “And neither do you.” The world’s only consulting criminal continued to talk to the Sherlock while beholding only John. “Has he divided and conquered you yet, Sherlock?”

“Oh no, you’re all man and too man for that.” Jim exclaims, inferring to the preposterous nature of the doctor seducing the detective. “ **You** _conquered_ **him** then?” The curl in Jim’s voice was self-satisfying and rich with hunger, so heavy and thick that John could sense Jim’s anticipation.

“Hungry, John?” Sherlock declared quietly, he spoke directly into John’s left ear, letting his hot breath caress the doctor’s cool skin.

“For, Sherlock?” John enquired genuinely, leaning back into the detective's shoulder blades..

“Let’s have dinner.”

“Oh, come now, Sherlock! Don’t be so cruel! Don’t tease him; he looks like he’s going to burst.” Jim’s implications were undeniably distracting to all three parties. Sherlock bit down as John closed his eyes, Moriarty winked at John and licked his lips at Sherlock. “Relieve the doctor of his pain, Sherlock, **_stroke your pet_** _._ ” Jim’s fluid brogue was dripping with self-indulgence, his ragged breath was clipped by slick control.

“Don’t play his games, John.” Sherlock protested to his entangled flatmate because all he could to protect John was talk.

“Oh, Sherlock,” The very phrase was almost a whimper “play fair. **Naughty, detective** _. Very naughty_.” Jim hummed, his voice dropped an octave, embodying the ideal fairy-tale villain. “Because he’ll play your games all day, won’t he? He plays your dirty games until you’ve got him panting and pleading, his skin is hot and his lips are bleeding, the water makes you tremble and he’s breathing in your ear that he wants **more** and you’ll play him until he begs twice for mercy.” Moriarty spun on one heel and paced towards the calculating doctor. “How does mercy look on you, I wonder, Johnny-boy? Does it hurt? Does he hurt?” Jim’s words retained their potency but had lost all playfulness. “He does, doesn’t he.” Jim agreed for both of them regardless of John’s opinion.

“What do you want, Jim?” John stared Jim in the eyes as he spoke.

“He’s _sucked_ the life right out of you, hasn’t he? You used to be so much fun, Doctor Watson.” James Moriarty smiled at how he could affect the pair without even touching them. He loved watching them squirm.  “I want to watch you dance, boys.” Jim grinned. “Sherlock, tell me, honey; how do you two tango?”

“We _tango_ as we tangle, Jim. Under water without politeness or clothes. And, I promise you, I hurt.” Sherlock attacked mordantly, his marble features imposed cut shadows onto John’s fair hair.

“Just once, Sherlock, I’d just love to touch you. Touch you then break you, maybe both at once, who knows? I’m so changeable! I’m a tease, aren’t I? And so are you, ooh!” Jim’s boyish smile caught John’s eye. “We’re just made for each other, honey! Why don’t you love me, Sherlock?” He mocked, twisting and turning on his feet as he wore the doctor and the detective down.

“You won’t get the chance. He’ll break you first, _trust me_.” John murmured defiantly, supporting Sherlock as much he cut him down.

“Ooh, Doctor, do I detect a note of heartbreak?” Jim enquired sarcastically. “Sherlock, look what you’ve done!” Moriarty bathed in every second of tormenting Sherlock and John.

“You detect a note of _faith_ , James.” Sherlock stated plainly, tightening his fingers around John’s. “And there’s nothing you can do about it, how sad for you.” Sherlock smiled ever-so-slightly when John’s fingers tightened back. “And I, James Moriarty,  have faith that you cannot break what is already broken, ergo I cannot be divided,” The detective leant his head back onto the doctor’s  shoulder, adjacent to his head, smiling small and loosely. “or conquered and will. Not. Lose.” Every word fell like a broken tooth but in the sweetest way the icy detective could assimilate compassion. “But, most of all, I believe in a doctor named John Hamish Watson.” Sherlock Holmes swallowed his pride, fear and soul and sacrificed himself to the devil’s right hand man; love.  “ **My doctor.** ”

Jim Moriarty swallowed his tight smile back as he raised the gun to John’s head. Their hands were tied and, still, they had Jim on his knees. Moriarty had tied John and Sherlock's hands together individually but their feet were bound as one. He had taped their necks together to quell the bleeding incisions he'd made gleefully, marking his prize, and had placed a tape cross across their hearts but Sherlock's was much smaller than John's. He had put them on John's bed with only minor bruising to their skin.

 The Irish criminal mastermind winced at himself for thinking about the both of them too much; the doctor and the detective, bent like dead roses. He removed the safety and pressed the gun harder, central to John's forehead.

"Sherlock, cutie, the bullet will cut through your doctor's head, straight through. Johnny, that very same bullet will fracture the detective's right shoulder blade and puncture his black heart. And I'll walk away, smiling, boys."  Jim decided that he would think no more of Sherlock and John and how they would die in bed, wrapped in each other and unable to touch. There was no kiss so sweet as sweet as one not swallowed.

"Oh, Johnny, I'll  leave you with the man you 'loved' for his heart, but heartless. And you; you hopeless, dangerous tease. Sherlock Holmes, you will have only the heart left of a doctor that you 'loved' for his mind. I'll  break you both, I promise."  Jim  was decided as he eased the trigger back. Sherlock didn't flinch because he knew what was coming. He had repressed John's fear quietly whilst John worried for Sherlock if he was doomed to a life, alone, without his doctor.

The detective leaned back into the doctor and whispered his sweet science into his ear. No regrets or compliments, Sherlock apologised for nothing, but it set John's heart to ease back from thumping in his chest because Sherlock hadn't changed. Sherlock Holmes would never change, he would stay the same compassionless, pompous, incredulous genius poisoned by boredom and a merely clinical and chemical understanding of love; having only tasted its bittersweet burn once, on a hazy, panicked Tuesday with a Doctor in the shower.

 And John was calm waiting for the bullet, knowing Sherlock was in his own safe hands.

 But no bullet broke John's head and, subsequently, Sherlock's heart.

 Only a fragile red flag struck the unnervingly calm Doctor, decorating his vision with the crude, scribbled 'BANG!' in black font against the white centre of the red flag.

“Oh, boys. What a way to burn!" Jim yelled happily, a spring was in his step when he pulled the trigger. James Moriarty lit a match and tossed it at his favourite boys, igniting the perfume he'd strewn over the bed; he spent no time watching it catch the sheets. He left 221B Baker Street burning with the aroma of roses and suspense.

 Sherlock slid his nimble hands out of the tape binds, teasing the duct tape apart enough for John to work with.  The detective erred his warm hands under the doctor’s shirt, one hand cradling John’s neck, the other splayed on his coccyx and dug deft, tugging fingers there under John’s his belt. Sherlock had all the leverage to pull john on top of him and keep him there until the perfume burnt out. Sherlock pushed John off of his bed so the doctor lay perfectly on top of the detective on John’s bedroom floor; charred sheets hid them from the world of light and fire outside. John pressed a hard, open kiss to the detective's agape mouth and smiled curtly, letting the perfume quickly burn itself up behind them. Sherlock marvelled at the shadows playing through the sheet draping John’s slightly golden hair.

"Let's have dinner. I mean it." Sherlock whispered into John's ear warmly.

"Took you long enough." John grinned indulgently at the world’s only consulting detective and the only detective in his world.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!  
> Go crazy!
> 
> With thanks to the brilliant betaing from the wonderful piece of beta pie; mimie_puddleduck


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